whirlybirds
by Caspar Wilde
Summary: A collection of shortish drabbles starring our one and only Ellis, before, during, and after the Outbreak, in no particular order. Some angsty, some fluffy, some funny, Nick/Ellis, some Keith/Ellis, some without pairings. T for language and violent themes. Chapter 6: Keith insists on calling up a hooker. Ellis has a better idea. KeithxEllis.
1. real fuckin' cool

In which Keith persuades Ellis to get a tattoo.

* * *

"C'mon, El, it'll be awesome! Ahm nearly eighteen an' you look a lil older 'n y'are - I bet they won' even ask us fer ID or nothin." Keith grinned like a lunatic, waving his arms about in that animated way of his. He had more than enough enthusiasm for the both of them and it bubbled over in such an infectious way that it was practically impossible for Ellis not to grin back, in spite of his doubts.  
"Aw Keith, ah dunno.." he argued, but his heart wasn't in it. He knew for a damn straight fact that wherever Keith went he would follow in a heartbeat and whatever he did Ellis would do too. More than once, when he used the excuse 'but Keith did it first' as an excuse for whatever dumb shit he did, his ma had asked him, 'if that boy put his head in a fire would you do it too?' and he genuinely had to stop and wonder because chances are he'd say yes. "..ah s'pose we could try.."

Keith whooped in response, grabbing Ellis by the front of his overalls and dragging him up from the workbench he was sitting at. Ellis could do nothing but laugh and shove lamely at his best friend's hands, cawing at him to "git away, damnit". But he didn't mind. Not really. Not at all.  
Once they were out of the garage Keith let go of him so that he could scramble up into the driver's seat of his beat up hybrid monster of a truck. Ellis paused outside of the passenger door, fingers resting on the handle. "We ain't goin' right now, are we?" He asked uncertainly, not wanting to put a damper on Keith's mood.  
"Hell yes we are!"  
"But we don' even know what we're gonna git.."  
"Aw hell Ellis, that don' matter none," Keith brushed his fears off with a wave of his hand, already revving the powerful engine of his vehicle. It coughed for a moment before firing out a burst of black smoke from the exhaust pipe, and roared violently into life. Ellis doubted it had much longer left for this world. "They's got books 'n book a pictures at the tattoo joint. We's c'n have a look-see there an' pick somethin' cool."

Ellis hesitated just a couple of seconds longer under Keith's stare, before shrugging and loading himself into the passenger seat. "S'gon be cool." Not quite a question, but Keith nodded anyway, and hit the accelerator. The truck lurched forwards. "Real cool. Real fuckin' cool, El."


	2. one more notch

For every day he's been away from Keith, Ellis makes a mark. Trigger warning for self injury.

* * *

_One more notch I scratch  
To keep me thinkin' of you  
One more notch does the maker make  
Upon my face so blue_

Rufus Wainwright, The Maker Makes

* * *

"Ellis. Ellis, c'mon, you're gonna bleed to death if you don't let me patch ya up. It's nothing I haven't seen before," Nick pressed, grabbing for Ellis' hands to pry them away from the ragged hem of his shirt. The young mechanic struggled for just a few seconds more before finally falling limp. He had his lower lip between his teeth and was biting down on it nearly hard enough to draw blood. Nick let himself think it was because he was in pain, but he had a sneaking suspicious he was about to discover something Ellis didn't want anyone to know about. "Quit your crying, overalls," he murmured, finally peeling the sticky material back from Ellis' tan skin.

The wound was nothing worse than they'd all had to deal with before. Nasty, yes, but nothing new. Not enough to slow them down. Nick would clean it out as best he could, slap a wad of gauze on it and they'd be on their way. But still, Ellis sucked in a sharp, pained breath, the toned muscles of his abdomen tensing as Nick cast a critical eye over his injury.

"Nick-" he began, fingers already moving to stop the conman's movements, but Nick ignored him completely and pushed his shirt the rest of the way up.  
His stomach lurched at what he saw, and he heard Ellis' little moan of anguish just at that moment.

Aside from the various ragged cuts, scrapes and bruises that decorated all the survivors' skin by now - well, that of the three of them still left surviving - a line of very precise, clean cuts was visible across Ellis' torso.

They were organised like train tracks, each roughly two inches long and only a centimetre or so wide, beginning at the top of the boy's ribs, to the left. There wasn't much space between them, thirty or so of them in total, and they were in various stages of healing. The first few were probably a few weeks old, beginning to scar. Those at the bottom were far fresher, the last still bleeding a little. It had been made today.

Nick didn't dare look up to see Ellis' expression. He could picture it well enough in his mind without humiliating the kid further. Nick's fingers travelled over the cuts without quite touching them, jaw tense with the effort of keeping emotion off his face. Several strained moments passed before the older man spoke.

"Did you do this to yourself, Ellis?"  
It was phrased as question, but it was clear that he knew the answer. What he was really asking was why.

All he got in response was a darker glare than he'd ever seen on the kid's face. "Aw, go t'hell, Nick," he spat, though his voice was choked and the anger was forced. He snatched the medpack from Nick with shaking hands, and shuffled away from him into a corner. Moving clearly was a great deal of effort, and Ellis seemed to be struggling just to get the pack open, but he'd be damned if he was going to give up.

Nick just sat and watched him for a good two minutes while he fumbled with the medpack's fastenings. Finally he couldn't stand to watch the boy struggle any longer, so he got up to cross the metre or so that separated them and crouched next to the mechanic. Ellis flinched away from him instinctively, cheeks colouring. "Ah c'n do it by m'self," he insisted weakly, but Nick just shook his head, extracting the first aid kit from Ellis' fingers. The boy was too drained to really protest.  
"Look, kid, just let me clean you up, alright? Pretend I didn't ask." His voice was softer than maybe either of them had ever heard it; Nick surprised himself a little. But it worked - Ellis nodded slowly, bottom lip pushed out in a childish pout. Nick nodded back once, and Ellis finally lay still enough for the gambler to clean out his wound and patch it over with gauze and medical tape, a somewhat awkward silence falling over the men as he worked.


	3. six dollars to my name

In which Nick returns to old habits after the apocalypse.

* * *

"I got five.. no, six dollars to my name." Ellis grinned, producing with a flourish a crushed handful of dollar bills from some deep dark place inside his overalls.  
Nick however shot him a scathingly skeptical look, eyebrows raised. "Well shit, Ellis, aren't you just drowning in dough," he muttered, fishing around in his own pockets. But merely moments later he paused, and withdrew his hands, empty. Slowly, he turned and plucked the meagre fortune from Ellis' fingers, trying not to think about where they might have been. He slid the money across the counter to the suited woman behind it and collected his couple of chips. He tipped the young mechanic a wink, elegantly twisting the chips between his fingers. "By the end of the night, I'll turn this into five hundred dollars, or call me a liar."

"Well, I'll be damned," Ellis breathed, letting out a low whistle under his breath as the lady counted out bill after crisp fresh bill. Finally she slid the stack of cash across to Nick, who simply smirked as he folded the money and stowed it safely away inside his filthy jacket, making sure to tuck the bills in behind one of the Desert Eagles he kept concealed on his person. They might not have had zombies to worry about anymore, but Nick still never felt quite right without some sort of firearm.  
"Told you," he quipped triumphantly, leading Ellis, whose mouth still hung open in awe, out into the cool Vegas night. "Bet you've never even seen so much money at once before, have ya?" It was a little cruel, he knew, to get so high and mighty teasing the kid, but old habits die hard. However, at that stub Ellis grinned, making Nick frown just a little.  
"Well, actually, ah have, 'cause at th' auto shop we handled mosta our, uh, tran-sac-shins in cash, and this one time, muh buddy Keith had this-"  
"Save it, overalls," Nick snapped, sullen all of a sudden at having been shot off his pedestal. Ellis just laughed, and shook his head, and laughed some more, hands in his pockets as they walked together.


	4. dry as dust

In which the infection is suddenly a far more personal issue.

* * *

"Damn, my throat is dry as dust," Ellis moaned, rubbing at his neck with a pained grimace. Nick ignored him initially, but shot him a suspicious glance when the kid started coughing. It was a dry, ragged hacking sound that made the conman cringe a little to imagine how it must be hurting the boy. Thankfully, it seemed a far cry different from the wet murky sounds that usually signaled Green Flu. Nick didn't even want to entertain a notion like that, especially after what happened with Coach. He shook his head to knock that thought out of the way and crouched to dig through his backpack, carefully keeping his gaze away from Rochelle. The woman was hunched in the same corner she had been all of last night and all of the day, curled in on herself and staring dead ahead with haunted eyes.

Poor girl had been practically catatonic since Coach had turned the previous night.

The two had been on watch together when it happened; Nick and Ellis had woken to her screaming hysterically and desperately shoving back the zombie she couldn't bring herself to kill. Nick had taken him out without batting an eyelid and dragged the body outside. After that Rochelle had shut down almost completely, despite Ellis doing his best to coax her into drinking, eating, speaking - but she wouldn't so much as move. Nick was seriously considering leaving her behind if she wasn't back on her feet pretty soon. Ellis had pleaded with him to wait til the next day, see if she got any better, but the conman wasn't holding his breath.


	5. some kinda fairy

In which Keith insists on calling up a hooker, but Ellis has a better idea. Nothing too graphic.

* * *

"Keith, I still ain't sure this is a good idea. I mean, we could catch somethin' funny from this lady. Doncha remember that one time Dave called up that lady when he was real drunk, an' she was real 'spensive an' he said he din' even have that good of a time 'cause he was too drunk, an' then he went fer a piss an' he said it burned like th'devil an' he had t'go t'the hospital an' get.. pills t'take.. Keith, are yuh list'nin' t'me?"

"Shutit, El," Keith hissed, putting a hand over the receiver of the phone he already held to his ear. That phone was like everything else Keith owned; temperamental, beat-up and prone to firing out sparks at random intervals. "An' stop sayin' 'lady'. She's a _hooker_, El."

Ellis frowned, rubbing anxiously at the tattoo on his shoulder that Keith had talked him into last summer. The inked skin felt different to the rest, cooler and smoother.

"Ah jus' think it's a waste a money, that's all," he grumbled, scuffing the ground with the toe of his boot. Keith leaned over and shoved him. It wasn't a very hard shove, but Ellis purposefully didn't brace himself against it and let himself be pushed off the bed. He breathed a cuss and gathered himself back up, muttering under his breath. "That was uncalled for, Keith."

"Ellis, shut _up_. Someone's answerin'!" Keith growled, paying his friend no heed.

He'd been acting funny for a while now. He didn't seem to ever want to touch Ellis anymore, refused to show any of the sort of brotherly affection they were used to. Hell, the other day Ellis had tried to give him a hug and Keith had punched him in the mouth. Not hard enough to do much damage, but enough to throw him off, and his teeth still ached when he thought about it. Now that he was insisting on calling up a hooker, El wondered if maybe he was just antsy because he hadn't gotten laid for a while. But there were easier, cheaper and far safer ways to deal with being a bit horny - even Ellis knew that.

"Y'know, Keith..." He began, settling back down on the bed and leaning over Keith's shoulder. The older boy shot him a glare that would pierce steel, having been interrupted mid-sentence. He shrugged Ellis off, returning to his conversation on the phone.

Ellis wasn't sure what was driving him to do it - hell, Keith might beat the shit out of him and never speak to him again if his intuition was telling him wrong, but he was a little tipsy on cheap liquor and Keith was too and it seemed a far sight better plan than calling up some dirty old lady and catching syphilis.  
So he slipped an arm around Keith's shoulders, and again Keith tried to throw him off until Ellis' hand found its way under Keith's shirt. Then he froze, going dead silent, mouth open. Ellis felt his heart jump under his palm.

"Ellis," Keith started, slowly lowering the phone. "What t'hell are you doing?" He was probably trying to sound aggressive, but his voice was too slurred and cracked for that. Instead, he just sounded uncertain, a little nervous, even - Keith was *never* nervous - and.. hopeful?

"Whassit look like?" Ellis mumbled, nuzzling his face into the crook of Keith's neck.

"It _l__ooks_ like yer comin' on ta me, El," Keith answered, with a little more force, although he never moved to stop Ellis as his hands wandered a warm path over the muscles of his torso. Ellis felt his throat bob as he swallowed. "Wh-whut, you some kinda fairy now, or somethin'?"

"Nope," came the reply, soft and warm and slurred as Ellis pressed wet clumsy kisses against the back of Keith's neck. He felt his friend shiver, a suppressed sound that might just have been a moan rumbling in his throat. "Ahm jus' showin' ya that we don't need no hooker to have a bit of fun."

At that Keith really did moan, and finally turned to acknowledge Ellis. In one movement Keith's hands were on his shoulders and he was pushing him down onto the bed, kneeling astride Ellis' waist. "Dayum, honey," he breathed, leaning low to whisper so his breath ghosted over Ellis' neck. It was the younger's turn to shiver now, cheeks flushing warm. "I thought you'd never ask."  
Then he leaned up and kissed Ellis hard and god damnit it was the best kiss of Ellis' whole damn life.


End file.
